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MOSCOW, December 19, 2008 (GayRussia.ru) – The Moscow
City Court dismissed yesterday an appeal by the organisers of a proposed
picket last July in front of Iranian Embassy which was banned by the city
authorities. The Taganskiy district court had upheld the ban.

In
2006 and 2007 similar demonstrations outside the Iranian Embassy were
permitted. But the word “homosexual” was not in the
application to the city authorities. It was this year, activists say.

The
case is likely to go to the European Court of Human Rights. If it does, it
will be the sixth case from gays in Russian to be appealed to Strasbourg.

The picket, to condemn executions – and to demand an end
to the death penalty – of gays and children in Iran was set for July 19 and
organisers planned to have up 30 participants.

The Prefecture of the Central Administrative Area of
Moscow was informed about the picket by the organisers, in full accordance
with the Russian law, on July 11. But the same day then deputy prefect
Galina Boryatinskaya banned the picket on security grounds.

In her letter to the organisers, Mrs. Boryatinskaya gave
references to Article 11 of the European Convention which, according to her
views, allows limiting the right to freedom of assembly for the protection
of pubic order, to prevent disorders, for the protection of health and
morality as well as the rights and freedoms of other people.

Five days later, picket organisers appealed the ban to
Taganskiy district court of Moscow, asking the court to invalidate the
decision of the deputy prefect.

On September 18, district court judge Mikhail Kazakov
dismissed the complaint, ruling that the actions of the Prefecture were
lawful. Organisers said in court that Russian legislation does not allow
authorities to ban peaceful public events and that they only need to notify
the authorities in accordance with the procedure.

Additionally, it was pointed out in court that for the
past two years – July 19, 2006 and July 19, 2007 – the Prefecture allowed
similar pickets.

In the first two years, organisers did not mention
“homosexuals” in their application.

Just one additional word changed the mind of the
authorities and led to the ban of the event, the organisers suggested,
insisting that the ban was discriminatory toward gays.

The demonstrations by Russian gays and lesbians in front
of Iranian Embassy in 2006 and 2007 were organised as part of the
international campaign against executions of people in this Islamic state.
There were no incidents.

July 19 is the day in 2005 that two Iranian teenagers
were publicly executed. Both were said by Iranian activists to have been
gay.

“When we get the final written judgement from Moscow City
Court, we will send a new complaint to the European Court of Human Rights,”
Nikolai Alekseev said last night.

There are currently five cases from Russian gays pending
at the Strasbourg-based Human Rights Court, the earliest concerning the ban
on the first-ever Moscow Pride in 2006.

Earlier
this week, these cases were referred to by MEPs in written European
Parliamentary questions, concerning gay rights in Russia and Belarus, to the
President of the European Commission.